Book picks similar to
Terminal Mind by David Walton
science-fiction
sci-fi
fiction
scifi
Good Morning, Midnight
Lily Brooks-Dalton - 2016
For years he has lived in remote outposts, studying the sky for evidence of how the universe began. At his latest posting, in a research center in the Arctic, rumors of war arrive. The scientists are forced to evacuate, but Augustine stubbornly refuses to abandon his work. Shortly after the others have gone, Augustine discovers a mysterious child, Iris, and realizes the airwaves have gone silent. They are alone. At the same time, Mission Specialist Sullivan is aboard the Aether on its return flight from Jupiter. The astronauts are the first human beings to delve this deep into space, and Sully has made peace with the sacrifices required of her: a daughter left behind, a marriage ended. So far the journey has been a success, but when Mission Control falls inexplicably silent, Sully and her crew mates are forced to wonder if they will ever get home. As Augustine and Sully each face an uncertain future against forbidding yet beautiful landscapes, their stories gradually intertwine in a profound and unexpected conclusion. In crystalline prose, Good Morning, Midnight poses the most important questions: What endures at the end of the world? How do we make sense of our lives?
The Watch
Dennis Danvers - 2002
An ambitious and compelling novel, The Watch tells the story of Peter Alexeivich Kropotkin, a former prince who renounced his riches to become an anarchist, and his deathbed pact with the mysterious visitor who gives Peter a new life in the future-- a seeming miracle with a darker edge that soon comes into focus.
The Bone Clocks
David Mitchell - 2014
But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.
vN
Madeline Ashby - 2012
She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, little Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive.Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she’s learning impossible things about her clade’s history – like the fact that the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has failed… Which means that everyone wants a piece of her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her.
Robopocalypse
Daniel H. Wilson - 2011
Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication.In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans—a single mother disconcerted by her daughter's menacing "smart" toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a "pacification unit" go haywire—but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.When the Robot War ignites—at a moment known later as Zero Hour—humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us ... and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.
The Midwich Cuckoos
John Wyndham - 1957
A day later the object is gone and everyone awakens unharmed—except that all the women in the village are discovered to be pregnant.
The Apex Book of World SF 2 (Apex Book of World SF #2)
Lavie TidharHannu Rajaniemi - 2012
In The Apex Book of World SF 2, World Fantasy Award nominated editor Lavie Tidhar brings together a unique collection of stories from around the world. Quiet horror from Cuba and Australia; surrealist fantasy from Russia and epic fantasy from Poland; near-future tales from Mexico and Finland, as well as cyberpunk from South Africa. In this anthology one gets a glimpse of the complex and fascinating world of genre fiction – from all over our world. Pre-order edition also includes Nir Yaniv‘s never-before-published-in-English novelette “Undercity” (8800 words) as well as Charles Tan‘s essay, “World SF: Our Possible Future”!Table of Contents:“Alternate Girl’s Expatriate Life” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz“Mr Goop” by Ivor W. Hartmann“Trees of Bone” by Daliso Chaponda“The First Peruvian in Space” by Daniel Salvo (translated by Jose B. Adolph)“Eyes in the Vastness of Forever” by Gustavo Bondoni“The Tomb” by Chen Qiufan (translated by the author)“The Sound of Breaking Glass” by Joyce Chng“A Single Year” by Csilla Kleinheincz (translated by the author)“The Secret Origin of Spin-Man” by Andrew Drilon“Borrowed Time” by Anabel Enríquez Piñeiro (translated by Daniel W. Koon)“Branded” by Lauren Beukes“December 8th” by Raúl Flores (translated by Daniel W. Koon)“Hungry Man” by Will Elliott“Nira and I” by Shweta Narayan“Nothing Happened in 1999” by Fábio Fernandes“Shadow” by Tade Thompson“Shibuya no Love” by Hannu Rajaniemi“Maquech” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia“The Glory of the World” by Sergey Gerasimov“The New Neighbours” by Tim Jones“From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7” by Nnedi Okorafor"The Slows” by Gail Hareven (translated by Yaacov Jeffrey Green)“Zombie Lenin” by Ekaterina Sedia“Electric Sonalika” by Samit Basu“The Malady” by Andrzej Sapkowski (translated by Wiesiek Powaga)“A Life Made Possible Behind The Barricades” by Jacques Barcia“Undercity” by Nir Yaniv“World SF: Our Possible Future” by Charles Tan
The Last Conversation
Paul Tremblay - 2019
All you have is the disconnected voice of an attentive caretaker. Dr. Kuhn is there to help you—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. She’ll help you remember everything. She’ll make sure you reclaim your lost identity. Now answer one question: Are you sure you want to?Paul Tremblay’s The Last Conversationis part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.
End of an Era
Robert J. Sawyer - 1994
Hoping to solve the extinction mystery, they find Earth's gravity is only half its 21st century value and dinosaurs that behave very strangely. Could the slimey blue creatures from Mars have something to do with both?
Ship of Fools
Richard Paul Russo - 2001
Now an unidentified transmission lures them toward a nearby planet-and into the dark heart of an alien mystery.
Salvage Title
Kevin Steverson - 2018
But there is always a loophole… Harmon Tomeral wanted nothing more than to go to space. Sent to an orphanage when his parents were killed in a sandstorm, the odds were stacked against him. Despite that, he made it to the academy and graduated in the top ten percent of his class…only to find out the fleet did what it wanted, regardless of regulations, and he came from the wrong planet. He didn’t give up his dream, though, because where there’s a will, there’s a loophole, and Harmon and his friends found their loophole in the Top Fleet Marine competition—the winner would get 100,000 credits, which would just be enough to start their own salvage company. If they could build a mech and win the competition, they would be set. But the fleet had already shown they didn’t want him in space, so it would be an uphill fight. Good thing his friends and crew were very much against fleet regulations.
Only Forward
Michael Marshall Smith - 1994
Close by is Sound, where you mustn’t make any, apart from one designated hour a day when you can scream your lungs raw. Then there’s Red – get off at Fuck Station Zero if you want to see a tactical nuclear battle recreated as a sales demonstration.Stark has friends in Red, which is just as well because Something is about to happen. And when a Something happens it’s no good chanting ‘Duck and cover’ while cowering in a corner, because a Something is always from the past, Stark’s past, and it won’t go away until you face it full on.
The Beautiful Land
Alan Averill - 2011
A great gig—until information he brought back gave Axon the means to maximize profits by changing the past, present, and future of this world. If Axon succeeds, Tak will lose Samira Moheb, the woman he has loved since high school—because her future will cease to exist. A veteran of the Iraq War suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Samira can barely function in her everyday life, much less deal with Tak’s ravings of multiple realities. The only way to save her is for Tak to use the time travel device he “borrowed” to transport them both to an alternate timeline. But what neither Tak nor Axon knows is that the actual inventor of the device is searching for a timeline called the Beautiful Land—and he intends to destroy every other possible present and future to find it. The switch is thrown, and reality begins to warp—horribly. And Tak realizes that to save Sam, he must save the entire world…
Storm Divers (Fractured Republic Saga #1)
Terry Mixon - 2016
For Adam Hale, the thrill of plunging his tiny ship into the unimaginable maelstroms on the king of planets helps him forget the blood-soaked tragedy that ended his military career. Rachel Price came to Jove Station to find her missing partner, Zane Hale, who is also an intelligence operative for the Republic. To do that, she must convince Zane’s brother—the man responsible for slaughtering dozens of her friends on Mars—to help her. Amid the crowds of the first annual system-wide storm diving competition, they stumble onto an insidious conspiracy that changes everything they thought they knew about each other and themselves. They must overcome the past and work as one or Jupiter will eat their bones.
What Doctor Gottlieb Saw
Ian Tregillis - 2010
Gretel likes to pick wildflowers. Gretel is one of the subjects on the farm, and she is Doctor Gottlieb's responsibility, but she knows something she isn't telling -- and if Doctor Gottlieb doesn't figure it out, it may be his body in a ditch next. This story is set in the world of Ian Tregillis's Milkweed series, which began with Bitter Seeds.